


As The Crow Flies

by walrusgrendel



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Minor Alistair/Female Warden, Post-Dragon Age II, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2018-12-21 05:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11936850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walrusgrendel/pseuds/walrusgrendel
Summary: The Warden's planned lone journey to cure the Calling is rudely interrupted by her former companion and attempted assassin who insists on tagging along.





	1. Chapter 1

Ariane was packed and ready to leave before dawn but she waited for hours before calling Nathaniel to the main hall of Vigil’s Keep. He at least deserved a full night’s rest before she burdened him with the news she had been keeping to herself for the past few months. Still, that left a slow crawl of time for her to lean back against a wooden pillar and enjoy the warmth of the fire and think. The fortress remained largely unchanged from when she had arrived almost seven years ago. They had needed to repair large areas where the darkspawn had worn away at some of their defences but the changes were so minute that Ariane doubted that even the most keen-eyed would spot them. The people within the Keep too were mostly still the same. Only a couple more wardens had joined her initial group. The prestige of serving under the Hero of Ferelden was not enough for many to forget that they were extremely unlikely to ever see a Blight again in their lifetime.

Oghren, Nathaniel, Velanna, and Sigrun were constants in her life that she could never have gotten by without. Ariane would sometimes fall into a tearful mood every time she was reminded of her first companions- scattered throughout Thedas almost as soon as the Archdemon had fallen. Of her ten friends, only Oghren and her dog Pepper had remained by her side all these years later. Of course, she would still receive letters from Leliana and Zevran- giving her details of their work that she was almost certain that she was not supposed to know- and scraps of news would sometimes reach her from Par Vollen regarding the qunari that she had once known as Sten. She had the returned the favour when she had begged recipes for cakes and cookies off of a merchant in Amaranthine and sent them across the sea. Loghain was the one with whom she had had the most regular correspondence with, with each missive letting her know between reports from the wardens across the border, in no uncertain terms how much he detested Orlais, still. Although from the sounds of it he hadn’t entirely managed to escape developing some respect for his new brothers and sisters. 

He and Leliana had been the ones to help guide her through the fallout of what had happened at Kirkwall several months ago. Anders and Justice had been under her command, after all, and the Templars had descended on Amaranthine demanding answers which she could not give. They couldn’t help but mistrust her. No matter what she had done, no matter how far from the Circle she now was, she could not stop being a mage. To some of them, that was as good as being in league with Anders. Fortunately, the Grey Wardens were still afforded the same consideration that they always had been and they soon left Amaranthine, grumbling and dissatisfied, but relatively peacefully. Zevran had offered assistance then too but Ariane was very familiar with the sort of help he and the Crows would offer and swiftly declined. From Morrigan she had not heard anything since the mage had gone through the Eluvian, and Alistair… He had not even spoken to her since the Landsmeet, all those years ago.

It surprised her to realise that at twenty-seven, Ariane Surana was still a young woman. In the relatively short time between leaving the Circle and that morning, she felt as though she had lived a hundred lifetimes. How had the ancient elves managed it? It was as though she had been frozen in place for the last few years, watching the world shift around her, no longer changing with it. Amaranthine had offered a sense of quiet that she had not had since leaving the Circle but she still felt uneasy, as if waiting for a similar disaster to sweep her away. She had not expected when she had arrived that it would be by her choice that she would leave it. 

One last adventure would be enough.

The sun had lit the wintry Amaranthine sky for two more hours before Ariane decided, wearily, that there was no sense in delaying things further. She had sent Varel to intercept Nathaniel when he left his room and bring him to the hall where Ariane waited, looking into the flames. The first snows of winter were beginning to settle just outside. For the first year there, she had not thought it possible- not so close to the sea- but she had been proven wrong quickly. Travelling would be harder but maybe she would avoid the worst of the clashes between mages and templars.

_“Is this snow?” “Yeah. What’s wrong? Never seen it before?” A raised eyebrow had silenced him as soon as the words left his mouth and Ariane could see him mentally berating himself. “I’ll, ah, just be quiet from now on.”_

_“We only went outside for exercise in the Summer. And then not at all after one of the apprentices tried to escape by swimming across Lake Calenhad.” She took pity on Alistair as he stood in awkward silence. He returned the story with a loud guffaw that sent ravens fleeing from the trees and made Morrigan look back at them with a murderous expression._

_“I can imagine them all! Standing about on the shore looking stupid! Though, I guess you wouldn’t know. Helmets and everything.” He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and the two continued laughing until Ariane could feel her own tears freezing to her cheeks._

“Warden Commander?” Nathaniel’s voice broke Ariane out of her thoughts. She was in Amaranthine, not the Frostbacks and the tears on her face must be the result of the smoke from the fire stinging her eyes.

“Nate, you’ve known me for seven years. Just ‘Ariane’ is fine.” She said, her lips twitching into a smile.

“Sorry, Ariane.” He looked a little relieved, “Varel made it sound like something was wrong. I feared the worst.”

Nathaniel Howe always stood as though he were tied to a pole- keeping him rigidly upright no matter where he was or what he was doing. Ariane had made a joking comparison between him and Shale once as she though Oghren might have actually choked on his drink. 

“I didn’t mean to worry you.” She reassured him, “But I’ve been thinking a lot about this place for the past months. About the future of the Wardens.” Nate hung on her every word. She could almost hear his brain moving at rapid speed, trying to puzzle out where she was going with this. “And I think… you’re the one I want to be Warden Commander.”

His brow rose so fast Ariane almost laughed. “You-but- what? I mean…” He took a deep breath. “ Have you-?” His voice dropped, taking on the same tone one might at a funeral, “Have you heard the Calling?”

“No.”

“Then what are you talking about?” He seemed extraordinarily relieved. “You’re not going anywhere so surely this can wait for at least a while longer?”

“I haven’t heard the Calling.” Ariane repeated. “But I am leaving Vigil’s Keep.”

Nathaniel stared at her. “You’re leaving the Grey Wardens? After everything you-“

“I didn’t say that, Nate. It’s not permanent or anything.” That was a lie. She doubted that she could even succeed on this and she wouldn’t return to Amaranthine with nothing. Yet, she didn’t want to tell Nate or any of the other Wardens of her plan. They might get their hopes up unduly, even worse; they might try to convince her to stay. If they did, she knew she would probably never leave. “But I want someone I trust to be in command while I’m gone”

“Choose someone else.” Nate pleaded, “If you insist upon going then name Varel to watch over the Keep. Make Velanna or Sigrun the leaders of the Wardens.”

“Nate I am not making this decision on a whim. I’ve thought about each and every one of you.” Ariane was younger than Nate, and shorter, but she still always felt as though he were looking up to her somehow. Killing an Archdemon just seemed to have that effect on people. “There is no one here more capable or qualified than you. And no one else who can make the others listen.”

“If you think Oghren will listen to a single word I-“

“He’s the exception.”

Nate met her eyes, his own pleading. After a moment, he seemed to realise that she had made up her mind. “Just promise me you won’t be gone for long.”

Ariane just nodded. She couldn’t bear to make that promise.

Nate seemed to realise the reason for her silence and his shoulders slumped; just a little, not enough that anyone who didn’t know him would notice. He nodded at her, almost as if the two were deliberately trying to mirror each other. 

“Tell the others to come down to the gate in about an hour. I want to talk to them before I go.”

“You’re leaving so soon?”

 _If I don’t go now, then I never will._ “It’s urgent.” She lied. He nodded again.

Once Ariane was back in her room, she did not allow the tidal wave of emotion she was holding back to hit her. She took off her Grey Warden uniform; the same one that Duncan had gifted her with after her Joining. The material was ripped and patched up in some places, stained in others. On the shoulder was the faint remnant of a burn she had narrowly avoided to the head from the flames of a High Dragon. What she had been thinking when she had banged that gong, she could not say. Instead of her Warden uniform, she chose a simple set of travelling robes- with her staff on her back she could not pretend to be anything other than a mage, unless she encountered some truly oblivious Templars. Ariane made one final sweep of the room, making certain that nothing she could need had been swept beneath the bed or down the side of the furniture. Satisfied that nothing was amiss, she straightened up at last and left, hefting her pack onto her shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

The farmstead was a broken, ruined mess. Bandits had burned the little cottage and the ajoining barn to the ground only a few months ago. While the Amaranthine guard had driven the bandits out, the farmer and his workers were already dead and no one had come forward to claim it. Ariane drew her cloak closer. It was a unsettling place- very much like the Brecillian Forest had been on their journeys through it all those years ago. The ground was still cracked and ash-marked and no one had even come to clear the rubble or the skeletal remains of the crops that had been just bearing fruit when they were burned.

She would make it as far west as she could before she became to weary to continue. Ariane had sent a message to Warden Commander Clarel telling her to expect her within the next few months but without her normal group of companions, she did not want to drag the journey out any further than was necessary. The idea for her quest had just begun as a small itch in the back of her mind that only grew as the years as Warden Commander wore on. Many years ago, long before the Blight there was a story about a Warden who had been cured. It was all a great secret: the commanders didn’t want Wardens running off in search of some mythical cure and at first Ariane had dismissed the very idea of it. Still, whether she willed it or not her time would come eventually. Maybe not for another few decades if she had luck on her side but soon enough she would hear the music of the Blight pulling her down to the Deep Roads. 

A cold gust of air shook her suddenly and Ariane quickened her pace. She did not want to linger in this sad, dead place.

The Warden continued onwards for another hour before she heard it. Something was moving behind her.

At first she thought she would need to battle a bandit but quickly discounted that idea- she was known all throughout Amaranthine and no one would be foolish enough to attack her. She considered the possibility that one of the Wardens had chosen to ignore her instructions and was coming after her, either to stop her or to ask again to come too. Oghren and Sigrun at least had assumed that was what she had been intending and the look on their faces as Ariane told them that she would be going alone was almost enough to change her mind. Ariane tilted her head, listening hard. It sounded more like an animal than anything else. Easily dealt with.

Ariane reached back slowly and clasped her staff before whirling around and preparing to aim a spell towards the source of the noise. Instead, what she saw made her drop her staff and fall to the ground with her arms outstretched.

“Pepper! What are you doing?”

The Mabari barrelled forward, straight into her chest, nearly knocking her over. Ariane had to hold a hand up to stop him from slobbering over her face and reached up to rub his side.

Pepper barked happily and continued trying to break through her guard to lick her eyes.

“Stop!” Ariane laughed, trying and failing to sit up straight again, “Did you follow me all the way out here? I told you to stay at Amaranthine! Nate would have looked after you!”

The Mabari whined and sat back, allowing Ariane to recover though she stayed sitting on the empty road. 

“Well, you’re here now.” She shrugged, “Though I need to warn you: we’re going to Orlais.”

Pepper growled softly and Ariane chucked again as she stood, picking her staff up out of the dirt as she did so. 

“Come on then, we’ve still got a long way to go.”


End file.
